Sound Shapes Preorder, Level Editor and Trophy Mode Detailed

Fellows! We’ve are absolutely gagging here to get Sound Shapes into your hands. Gagging! We wish it could be in your hands right now! But unfortunately that can’t be, as this week saw the release of The Expendables 2 as part of the PSN Play promotion, not us. However! If you’re popping into PlayStation Store to pick it up at any point this week you can also pre-order Sound Shapes and get an exclusive PS3 theme. That’s not to forget PSN Play’s money-saving promotion: the more games you pick up, the more money you save. So if you’ve already picked up The Expendables 2, you’ll get a cool three bucks back if you pick up Sound Shapes.

But enough of that waffle. Because we’re excited to get Sound Shapes into your hands, we wanted to kick start your imaginations by having one of our founders, Jonathan Mak, walk you through level creation using our level tools. And if you’re the kind of player who is more excited to *play* than create (and that’s fine, too) we’re revealing our Trophy mode. And yes, there is a Platinum.

So, until this point we’ve been showing you lots of different parts of our campaign mode. Just to recap: we’re providing five different albums with several tracks each, with each album including art and music from a different pair of artists, such as deadmau5 and Pixeljam or Pyramid Attack and Beck. Beating these levels will unlock their components, and then you’ll be able to mix and match them in your own levels!

In the following video, for example, Jon quickly puts together a level that (among other things) includes deadmau5 loops paired with Jim Guthrie/Superbrothers hazards, and he throws in some vocals that you might remember from our recent reveal of the Beck album Cities. He even shows off the player’s ability to record timings and change beats per minute… and it all sounds (and plays!) pretty good:

We’ve tried to make creating a song and level as fun as possible, but also effortless to upload and share. We’ve said this before, but seeing what players do with our tools is one of the things we’re *most* looking forward to. We’re certain that, after a couple of days, you’re going to blow away what Jon did here.

Something that we think (hope?) is going to take you more than a matter of days, however, is claiming our Platinum Trophy. If you’re a Trophy hunter, you’re probably well aware of the pain and glory of trying to conquer the intense Trophy levels in our pal Shawn McGrath’s new PSN exclusive Dyad. Here at Queasy Games, we didn’t want players to be distracted by playing albums in a certain way for Trophies, or trying to “game” our community. Instead we created two things: Death Mode and Beat School.

Death Mode is an unusual twist in our campaign mode. Once you’ve beaten our albums, you can flip each album over to a b-side and experience intense, single-screen timed challenges to collect notes without dying based on signature moments from each of the album’s tracks. Each win unlocks a Trophy, and it’s our hope that these will test the skills players have learned in our levels, making each Trophy win hard fought but deeply rewarding. Beat School is a different sort of challenge: here we challenge all players, even (if not especially) those who consider themselves “non musical,” to create beats on a single screen by listening and matching to a beat we have created. With luck, these levels will challenge and inspire you to go into the editor and make your own beats—if Jon’s video above hasn’t already convinced you.

Don’t forget: Sound Shapes hits PS3 and PS Vita as a cross-play title August 7th, but you can pre-order it now, receiving a lovely Cory Schmitz-designed PS3 theme and the ability to play the game on PS3 or PS Vita no matter which system you buy it on. You get both versions for one price! It’s $14.99 (20% off for a limited time for PS Plus members). And oh yeah, the Trophies are shared between both versions, too. Did we mention there’s a Platinum?

Already pre-ordered! Cannot wait to dive into everything next week!
Glad to see a more in-depth video of the level editor, and a platinum is nice too.
Great Job to everyone at Queasy Games and everyone else part of the amazing collaboration!

i cant wait to get my vita these games are awsome! i have a great game collection of games already these game looks great cant wait for it next week! keep it up playstation your doing great! its great being a ps+ member its worth every penny! awsome job great game coming this month for us ps+ members cant wait for this months games! thanks playstation! I LOVE BEING A PLAYSTATION MEMBER! ITS GREAT PS+IS AWSOME!

Hey Sony, what is the chance for us to get Dead Space 2 just like the european psplus guys?????????? In the past 2 months the european psplus received great updates. Please Sony, show us some respect and give us at least 1 GOOD full game on next week, i said GOOD like Dead Space 2, Motor Storm Apocalypse, Darksiders, Magic 2013, Batman, etc…

Can’t wait for this game another week ut i have to. So it will be like LBP in the aspect where players put levels online and anyone can play them? I’m surprised how easy it will be to create my own musical levels. August 7th feels so far away!!!!

I’m looking foward to this game, the level editor seens amazing!
Also, congrats on your decision of letting us buy the game just one time and still being able to cross-play. Its always to see developers respecting gamers.

couple of questions now:
1 – Do you have any plans to relase future DLC featuring new songs/beats? There are some artists that would be a blast working with Sound Shapes (Trent Reznor, for instance)
2 – What about user-made songs? I’ve made some beats using that awesome app. Incredibox and man, it would be awesome to see it on Sound Shapes.

I was wondering whatever happened to Jonathan Mak since Everyday Shooter. So many great pixel artists & musicians on board…I’m totally counting down the days/hours/minutes until this finally releases. That’s how excited I am!

The game looks great! I love how the guy really gets into it. You can see at the end when he looks up, the look in his eyes…like he’s just come out of a trance. I love immersive games like that. Also, the way he handled the PS Vita while creating/playing that level. Was really an impressive testament to both the Vita’s capabilities and the developers creative use of all the Vita functions. Seems like level creation will be way more intuitive on the Vita than on the PS3. Congrats on a great game guys, can’t wait to play it!

Not sure about this one. Looks like a cool game, but not usually my type of cool game. I think I am going to hold off on this one (even with my PS+ discount), and await a few reviews, or even a demo to try it out. If the reviews and/or demo are positive, I will be the first to admit I was wrong, and buy the game at full price.

This game looks AMAZING. I really can’t wait to get my hands on it. I’m usually horrible at level editors (can never seem to find little platforms that you can jump on) but this looks like it is really intuitive and will be easy with time. Will it come in both physical and digital forms? Next Tuesday cannot come any faster :/

i am as eager as the next chap to get my hands on this fine looking game. But will sokeone please tell someone to stop using video formats that arent viewable on the vita? I mean, after all this game will be on the vita, and im using one right now, but i cant see the video….. oh well. looking forward to this release regardless!

I’ll NEVER get tired of saying this, but I can not wait for this game to come out. Everytime I see it, it never fails to impress. Have I mentioned how glad I am that the game is coming to the PSN. Day one buy for me, no question about it.

Already pre-ordered this yesterday while I was grabbing The Expendables 2. Truly cannot wait for this. It looks so fun and fresh. And after watching that last vid showing the level creation, I’m mildly interested in creating as well. Normally I don’t care about creating content (inFamous 2, LBP, etc…) but with music being main focus here, it intrigues me just a bit more than other games that have given me creation tools. Looking forward to August 7th! :)

Dang! I just had $9 sitting on my PS3 for awhile, then I bought a costume for FFXIII-2 then I see this show up. I had no idea about the time when it’s availible or pre-orders and such, it was confusing. That looks like a nice theme and with superbrothers working on it? I’m in! and a vita game too? man.

Oh wait it’s $15? Ah I forgot, yes it’s still good. I though it was $8 sorry. I’ll just wait for an inevitable PSN sale in 2013 where they discount all the games they promote / hype up during the fall.

I will be getting this! More games should have that PS3/PS vita bundle to start off with. It influences me and entitles me to purchasing a Vita.

I got Discounted Escape Plan DLC and a Free Motorstorm game with discounted DLC and I don’t have a Vita yet. I’m excited to get one around this Black Friday or even later.

Well this sold me on the game. Being a dedicated trophy and platinum hunter I thank you for doing trophies this way. It is very annoying when you play games and you have to ensure you are playing it a certain way in order to get trophies. I’ve platinumed Dyad and I think the system of a “trophy mode” is a great way to extend a game’s life and offer something unique without hampering actual gameplay. Any chance there will be a posting of the trophy list?